Rainfall with thunderstorms could be expected in the next 24 hours
A streak of lightning as seen from the bridge that connects Guindy Industrial Estate with Five lights, Saidapet. (Photo: E.K. Sanjay)
Chennai: Friday was hot for residents of Chennai, with temperature reaching 36 degree Celsius. Towards evening around 5.30 pm, extremely dark and cloudy skies hovered over the city’s skyline. During the next few hours, like IT professional Hari Kannan marooned near Central station described, “It poured like there was no tomorrow!”As a result of the surprise and ferocious rain, accompanied by lightning, traffic was held up at several junctions. Power outages were also reported across several localities in the city, especially in the southern suburbs. Local trains on the Beach-Tambaram-Chengalpet line were operated at lower speed due to signal failures at some points.
“A trough of low pressure is lying over equatorial Indian ocean and adjoining south Andaman Sea. As a result, there was fairly wide spread rainfall in the state,” said S.R. Ramanan, director, Cyclone Warning Centre, Regional Meteorological Centre. Till 8.30 pm, the metrological department recorded about 6mm rainfall in the capital city.He further said rainfall with thunderstorms could be expected in several parts of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the next 24 hours. Salem, Dharmapuri, Namakkal, Perambalur, Villupuram and Tiruvanamalai are expected to receive heavy rainfall.
Many parts of South Chennai faced blackout on Friday evening after the Sriperumbudur 230 kv sub station got tripped due to rains. Tripping of the major substation, which supplies power to the sub station at Pallavaram and Kadaperi, resulted in power cuts in Pallavaram, Thillaiganga Nagar, and parts of Nanganallur, Perungulathur, Tambaram and IAF.
“The power went off at 6.45 pm. In the next 10 minutes, we restored power supply to railway traction and airport by availing back feeding from SP Koil substation. The power supply to all areas were restored by 7.20 pm,” a Tangedco official said. However, residents of Perungulathur said that the power supply was not restored till 9.30 pm.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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